Vegan Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Sauce (Starbucks-Style)

It’s that time of year again – time for pumpkin spice EVERYTHING!

Click here for the full recipe and nutritional information, or keep reading!

Picture it: September 2016. Pumpkin Spice made its way back to Starbucks. I ordered a Venti Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino with almond milk and no whip. I even asked for a domed lid because I wanted to put some soy whipped cream on top. Cue the obligatory Instagram photo:

Little did I know (and thankfully an Instagram follower was kind enough to let me know) that Starbucks changed from a pumpkin spice flavored syrup, found in many a pumpkin spice latte, to a milk-based sauce in 2015. That’s right: you CANNOT under any circumstances get a vegan Pumpkin Spice ANYTHING at Starbucks.

This recipe is, of course, incredibly simple. Simple ingredients, simple preparation, maximum enjoyment. The benefits are numerous: cheaper, faster than walking or driving to your nearest coffeeshop, control over sweetness and intensity of flavor, and so on. So let’s just make it ourselves, shall we?

The first thing you need is pumpkin (of course). You really want to use canned pumpkin. Fresh pumpkin is watery, stringy, more expensive, and just not worth the effort in my opinion. The bonus is that you can find canned pumpkin in any grocery store anytime of year, so enjoy your PSL whenever you want!

We can’t have our pumpkin without spice, now can we? For the sake of making this as easy as possible, I’m using a pre-mixed pumpkin pie spice, along with a little pinch of cardamom. You can also find pumpkin spice extract, which will eliminate the possibility of ground spices settling to the bottom of your coffee. I also like to put in a little vanilla bean paste.

Now for creaminess. I have seen recipes similar to this elsewhere online, and they always use coconut cream. I’m sure that’s delicious, but I don’t naturally associate pumpkin spice with coconut. I prefer to use a neutral-tasting coffee creamer, like Silk, with the added bonus being that it already tastes quite sweet. If you’re not into the overly processed stuff, I suggest a super-creamy but neutral-tasting nut milk, like cashew or macadamia.

Now blend or whisk it all up!

Give it a taste. Not enough pumpkin or spice? This is all yours, so adjust to your liking. Remember, this goes into coffee, so you’ll probably want this to taste obnoxiously sweet. I like to add maple syrup, but coconut sugar or any other sweetener will work, too. I like to keep mine on the not-too-runny side, but you can thin yours out with more milk, if you’d like.

Besides adding it to coffee, this sauce is delicious over vanilla ice cream, drizzled over a pumpkin icebox cake, or as a dip for apple slices, pretzel sticks, cookies, you name it!